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Most people accept that coal is a dirty fuel: Dirty to mine, dirty to burn, and dirty to dispose of the ash. Already there is a shift away from coal-fired power plants, but they still account for 30% of our electric power nationwide.

Each year, more than a million wildebeest migrate through Africa’s Serengeti Mara Ecosystem. While crossing the Kenyan reach of the Mara River, thousands perish. A new study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to reveal how wildebeest drownings impact the ecology of the iconic river.

Cary researchers are warning of a possible surge in tick-borne diseases in the United States this summer. A warming climate increases the likelihood that ticks will spread across the country - and that raises concerns of a public health crisis.

When the Zika virus arrived in Brazil, it went largely unnoticed until infected infants were born with microcephaly, a neurological disorder marked by a small head caused by severe underdevelopment of brain tissue in utero. As the number of Zika-affected babies grew, the World Health Organization moved quickly to declare Zika virus a public health emergency of international concern.

Sylvia Lee, PhD, is a scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. She has access to an unusual-yet essential-set of laboratory equipment: a whole greenhouse filled with white fiberglass bathtubs.

The U.S. is subject to the introduction of 2.5 new invasive insects into its forests ever year, according to a comprehensive analysis of this problem by Gary Lovett of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and a group of 15 colleagues. And that number is just for insects — it doesn't count diseases, such as sudden oak death.

Milder winters, burgeoning mice and deer populations and a bumper acorn crop from two years ago mean this year's tick season is expected to be bad and more widespread, experts say. With that comes the threat of more tick-borne diseases, including the most common, Lyme disease.

In the 1940s, Americans found a new way to love salt. Not simply for sprinkling on food — we'd acquired a taste for the mineral long before that — but for spreading on roads and sidewalks. Salt became a go-to method to de-ice frozen pavement.

North America's freshwater lakes are getting saltier due to development and exposure to road salt. A study of 371 lakes published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that many Midwestern and Northeastern lakes are experiencing increasing chloride trends, with some 44% of lakes sampled in these regions undergoing long-term salinization.

The New York Times reports that most Americans believe that our climate is changing, and a majority of them feel that the combustion of coal should be scaled back. But, what lags in public opinion is the motivation to do very much else about climate change. Most people don’t think climate change will matter to them.

Reports that the world’s oceans showed a two percent decline in oxygen content over the past 50 years gathered a lot of press attention a couple of weeks ago. This was not the first time that oceanographers have reported human impacts on the marine environment, and it is not likely to be the last.

Most of the planet’s freshwater stores are found in the northern hemisphere, a region that is changing rapidly in response to human activity and shifting climatic trends. An international team of scientists analyzed 147 northern lakes and found that many rely on nutrients from tree leaves, pine needles, and other land-grown plants to feed aquatic life.

For many of us, winter in the Northeast means cold temperatures and piles of snow, drifting through forests and across fields. It’s hard to imagine that winter here could be different, but the prospect of climate change has scientists asking just what our winters might look like in the future – and how those changes might influence forest ecology.

Rick Ostfeld and Felicia Keesing have been studying Lyme disease and ways to stop it for more than 20 years. The couple has come up with a way to predict how bad a Lyme season will be a full year in advance.

President Trump will sign an executive order Tuesday directing federal agencies to channel the wisdom of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in reconsidering an Obama administration rule that expanded Washington’s jurisdiction over state and local waterways under the Clean Water Act.

The White House has decreed that for every new regulation enacted, two existing regulations must be nullified. Regulatory overseers are now assigned to every Federal agency that might consider adding a new regulation. What a mindless way to ensure the health and safety of society.

New York's Eric Schneiderman and 10 other attorneys general have sent a letter to U.S. Senate leaders. The letter urges opposition to a bill that would eliminate states' authority to protect waterways from ships' polluted discharges, making it easier for non-native species to invade the Hudson River and Great Lakes.